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Density determination of liquid iron-nickel-sulfur at high pressure

  • Saori I. Kawaguchi ORCID logo , Guillaume Morard , Yasuhiro Kuwayama , Kei Hirose , Naohisa Hirao and Yasuo Ohishi
Published/Copyright: July 2, 2022
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American Mineralogist
From the journal American Mineralogist Volume 107 Issue 7

Abstract

The density of liquid iron-nickel-sulfur (Fe46.5Ni28.5S25) alloy was determined at pressures up to 74 GPa and an average temperature of 3400 K via pair distribution function (PDF) analysis of synchrotron X‑ray diffraction (XRD) data obtained using laser-heated diamond-anvil cells. The determined density of liquid Fe46.5Ni28.5S25 at 74 GPa and 3400 K is 8.03(35) g/cm3, 15% lower than that of pure liquid Fe. The obtained density data were fitted to a third-order Vinet equation of state (EoS), and the determined isothermal bulk modulus and its pressure derivative at 24.6 GPa are KTPr = 110.5(250) GPa and K′TPr = 7.2(25), respectively, with a fixed density of rPr = 6.43 g/cm3 at 24.6 GPa. The change in the atomic volume of Fe46.5Ni28.5S25 upon melting was found to be ~10% at the melting temperature, a significantly larger value than that of pure Fe (~3%). Combined with the above EoS parameters and the thermal dependence reported in the literature, our data were extrapolated to the outer core conditions of the Earth. Assuming that S is the only light element and considering the range of suggested Ni content, we estimated a 5.3–6.6 wt% S content in the Earth’s outer core.

Keywords: Liquid iron alloy; high pressure; Fe3S; Earth’s outer core; Physics and Chemistry of Earth’s Deep Mantle and Core

Special collection papers can be found online at http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/AmMin/special-collections.html.

Acknowledgments and Funding

We thank Y. Nakajima for sample preparation and Y. Higo, Y. Tange, and S. Kawaguchi for their fruitful discussion and help in analysis. R. Sinmyo, H. Xu, S. Kamada, and an anonymous referee were helpful to improve the manuscript. XRD measurements using DAC and at ambient pressures were performed at the BL10XU (proposals no. 2014A0080, 2014A1127, 2016A1846, 2016B1954, 2016B1955, 2017B1977, 2018A2062, 2018B2109, 2019A1381, 2019B2094) and BL02B2 beamlines (proposals no. 2019B2086) of SPring-8.

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Endnote

1Deposit item AM-22-77924, Online Materials. Deposit items are free to all readers and found on the MSA website, via the specific issue’s Table of Contents (go to http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/AmMin/TOC/2022/Jul2022_data/Jul2022_data.html). The CIF has been peer reviewed by our Technical Editors.

Received: 2020-12-09
Accepted: 2021-08-04
Published Online: 2022-07-02
Published in Print: 2022-07-26

© 2022 Mineralogical Society of America

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https://doi.org/10.2138/am-2021-7924
Keywords for this article
Liquid iron alloy; high pressure; Fe3S; Earth’s outer core; Physics and Chemistry of Earth’s Deep Mantle and Core

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Highlights and Breakthroughs
  2. Mineral evolution heralds a new era for mineralogy
  3. MSA Review
  4. Pauling’s rules for oxide-based minerals: A re-examination based on quantum mechanical constraints and modern applications of bond-valence theory to Earth materials
  5. A cotunnite-type new high-pressure phase of Fe2S
  6. Density determination of liquid iron-nickel-sulfur at high pressure
  7. On the paragenetic modes of minerals: A mineral evolution perspective
  8. Lumping and splitting: Toward a classification of mineral natural kinds
  9. Thermal expansion of minerals in the amphibole supergroup
  10. A multi-faceted experimental study on the dynamic behavior of MgSiO3 glass in the Earth’s deep interior
  11. Origin of β-cristobalite in Libyan Desert Glass: The hottest naturally occurring silica polymorph?
  12. Time-resolved Raman and luminescence spectroscopy of synthetic REE-doped hydroxylapatites and natural apatites
  13. Reexamination of the structure of opal-A: A combined study of synchrotron X-ray diffraction and pair distribution function analysis
  14. A first-principles study of water in wadsleyite and ringwoodite: Implication for the 520 km discontinuity
  15. Inclusions in calcite phantom crystals suggest role of clay minerals in dolomite formation
  16. Crystal-chemical reinvestigation of probertite, CaNa[B5O7(OH)4]·3H2O, a mineral commodity of boron
  17. Crystal structure determination of orthorhombic variscite2O and its derivative AlPO4 structure at high temperature
  18. Transformation of Fe-bearing minerals from Dongsheng sandstone-type uranium deposit, Ordos Basin, north-central China: Implications for ore genesis
  19. Vaterite in a decrepitated diamond-bearing inclusion in zircon from a stromatic migmatite in the Chinese Sulu ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic belt
  20. Oxygen diffusion in garnet: Experimental calibration and implications for timescales of metamorphic processes and retention of primary O isotopic signatures
  21. Oxidation state of iron and Fe-Mg partitioning between olivine and basaltic martian melts
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